How to make sure your ski and snowboard gear is ready to hit the slopes now

It’s time to get it into the shop and ready for winter

When word spread that 14 inches of snow had fallen at the Loveland ski area last week, the phone started ringing at Green Mountain Sports, closely followed by an influx of savvy skiers and snowboarders dropping off their gear to get it prepared for early season trips to the slopes.

Casual skiers and snowboarders may not understand the importance of having gear checked and prepared for the season, but there are good reasons to stop at your favorite shop. Skiing and riding are safer and more fun when gear is in good shape. And even if your gear was in good shape last spring, it may not be now.

Bases typically dry out over the summer, meaning they need a new application of wax. Maybe you didn’t notice that a screw was missing in the base plate of your snowboard binding, or you forgot about the boot buckle you broke skiing corn snow in March. Having your bindings checked might prevent an injury that could stop your season with one face plant.

“A preseason ski check is recommended to check your bases, check your bindings, make sure your boots fit properly, make sure the nuts and bolts and screws are all tight,” said Green Mountain Sports owner Corky Grimm, whose ski and bike shop has been a fixture in Lakewood for almost 21 years. “The edges need to be looked at to make sure there isn’t anything that was hit last year in the spring skiing.

“On the snowboard side, we see buckles that are missing or cracked, base plates that are loose on the snowboard. Sometimes the screws are pulling out of the base of the board. A lot of people really trash their equipment in the springtime, and it’s nice to get a fresh tune, everything back to being flat and sharp and ready to go.”

Perhaps a rock gouged a hole in the base of your skis or board and needs to be filled. Your edges might have rusted, especially if they were exposed to highway splash-back containing magnesium chloride while on the roof rack of your car. As the springs in bindings age, they lose tension and may need adjustment. They may even fail a test, meaning they have become unsafe.

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Corky Grimm, the owner of Green Mountain Sports, is preparing skis and snowboards for the upcoming season. (Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post)

There’s an easy way to tell if your skis need wax.

“If there is a white color to the base where it looks like it’s dry — almost like dry skin — your skis need wax,” Grimm said.”You will have more fun gliding down the slopes with a properly waxed ski.”

For optimal performance, your edges and bases need to be prepared for the ski conditions you are likely to encounter. You may not realize it, but there are minute grooves cut into your bases using a stone grinder — ski technicians call it structure — and different structure patterns work best depending on conditions. As a ski moves over snow, friction causes a film of water to form underneath it. Your skis need to deal with that, one way or the other.

“When it’s cold, you want to break the ‘sticktion’ and keep the water underneath the ski,” Grimm said. “When it’s warm, you want to break the suction and move the water out from under the ski. The (structure) pattern changes accordingly.”

Similarly, different waxes perform best in specific temperature ranges. So if you had your skis waxed last January for cold snow, they might not perform well in the warmer conditions you could encounter in November.

The binding check might be the most important part of ski prep for the season.

“We have a machine that tests twist (the toe piece releasing) and also heel release (forward pressure),” Grimm said. “There is a formula on a chart. If your binding falls within those ranges, then it’s safe to ski. If it’s not safe to ski, you could go into a turn and either the ski comes off too early or maybe it stays on too long — it could chew up a knee, hip, or break a leg. That’s why having your bindings checked is a good thing to do.”